I did not call—my lips shut like a purse. The last man

I kissed was different than the last man I fucked.

We were so desperate then, the two of us, undone

by longing, drawing night from the cracks

inside us, drawing the night out, as long as we could,

until dawn broke like a beat egg and our heartbeats

quieted in private fatigue. I’d be lying if I said I don’t recall

his name. The end of the world has ended, and desire is still

all I crave. Oh, to be a stone, sexless and impenetrable.

Over half of me is water, a river spilling into restless limbs,

the rest of me is a scalding heat like the asphalt under my feet.

Detail from “Poem After Betye Saar’s The Liberation of Aunt Jemima”

And out of her gushing head, I witnessed

four fully-grown women spring forth

like winged beasts: the first woman

wore the charm of her unmasked hair

and a taken-for-granted beauty that made

her all the more enticing; the last woman

modeled an anonymous version of herself—

an “I” that didn’t remind anyone

of anyone else, but who reminded Aunt Jemima

of freedom; the second woman brandished

a handheld mirror she spat on

then polished with the ruffled hem

of her apron, a mirror all the women,

except the last, gathered around

like campfire; and the second to last

woman carried a pink mulatto, squirming

on her hip—in the baby’s hand a rattle,

in the rattle a shattered lightbulb,

in the filament, a portrait

of the child’s father, who some say

Aunt Jemima tempted with her bottle-shaped

hips, but who was known to be monstrous—

a so-called god—and I beheld a sea

of blood, dark as syrup, oozing

from Aunt Jemima’s neck,

and four women flying, without shoes

or wings, from her maternal, amber body.

Primordial Mirror

I was newly naked: aware of myself

as a separate self, distinct from dirt and bone.

I had not hands enough,

and so, finally, uncrossed my arms.

In trying to examine one body part,

I’d lose sight of another. I couldn’t

imagine what I looked like during

the fractured angles of sex.

At the river’s edge, it was impossible

to see all of myself at once.

I began to understand nakedness

as a feeling.

It was a snake, loose and green;

it was the snake skin, coiled and discarded.

The shedding chained itself

like a balloon ribboned to a child’s wrist.

Morning’s birdsong reminded me

of the sloughing off f skin.

The rumored beauty of my husband’s first

wife never bothered me before.

I missed the sensation of being fixed

in amber. Then the hair in the comb,

fingernail clippings, the red mole on my

left breast grown suddenly bigger.

I perceived my likeness in everything:

the lines on my palm as the veins

of a leaf, my mind as a swarm of flies